When Xi Jinping arrived in Washington this week, President Trump chose to receive him not as the leader of a rival superpower but as a personal friend — setting aside the long-standing architecture of strategic competition that has defined U.S.-China relations across administrations. In doing so, Trump signaled a governing philosophy that places individual rapport above institutional rivalry, betting that warmth between leaders can soften the edges of geopolitical friction. Whether that wager holds as trade disputes, technology competition, and military tensions persist is the deeper question